


A Mad Fucked Neverland

by pandragonman



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Developing Relationship, Humans on Alternia, M/M, Stranded on Alternia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-06-25 19:33:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15647499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandragonman/pseuds/pandragonman
Summary: Dave went along with bro on a typical business trip for the sale of smuppets, but finds himself torn away from home when he wanders onto an alien ship and gets flown all the way to alternia, now he's wanted by the authorities and he has to wonder if he's stuck here for good.





	1. A Long Way over the Rainbow

> Be Dave Strider

 

You’ve been riding in this car for hours now.  Houston isn’t that far from Galveston but that doesn’t make trips there not-time consuming, and with how often Bro has business deals here you’ve started to wish that you could just move that shitty island just a little bit closer to make this trip at least slightly shorter.  Thankfully these trips get you out of the apartment more, which is welcome since bro won’t damage a hotel room with his shitty batarangs and swords if it means not getting charged extra for staying there. Hell he doesn’t even take much but his dumb fake anime sword half the time you come here, it’s honestly like he’s a whole different person when he’s doing anything to do with his smutty puppets.  Kinda like he likes them a whole lot more than he likes you, not that that would surprise you, it just isn’t the most comfortable thought you could have. The ride doesn’t last much longer though, you arrive in Galveston and shortly after drive up to the hotel.

 

You didn’t pack much for the trip, just filled a backpack with some snacks and a change of clothes, plus your 3ds and a decent laptop so you could work on your comic and maybe some beats while you’re away.  You throw yourself onto the bed and wait for Bro to settle his shit in here. You connect to the free wifi and see if you can play some animal crossing with Jade, seeing as that’s the only game she owns and you’ve got some time to kill.  You think whoever came up with the idea for a minigame island in new leaf should be given a promotion, since there isn’t much to do visiting other people’s towns kinda loses the novelty after like the 3rd time you do it. You don’t get the time you expected to do this though, as Bro bursts into the hotel room 15 minutes after you got here telling you to get in the car, something about the client changing the damn meeting time and needing to go to the docks right now.  Whatever, you guess you’ll just have to check up with your friends later. You grab a bottle of apple juice from your backpack and start drinking it as you get in the car, ready to go visit whatever weird perv’s boat Bro decides.

 

He tells you to keep your ass in the car so you can’t fuck up whatever dumb puppet sale he was gonna have, it’s become the usual warning for these kinds of things, though you think if someone’s willing to contact Bro and purchase one of his overpriced smuppets they probably won’t change their mind just by taking one look at his 17 year old little brother.  You do what he says though, no reason to incur his wrath when you get back home. Instead you just watch him walk onboard the huge red boat in a comically formal suit with his shitty katana tied to his back and a briefcase with nsfw puppet parts sticking out of it, while he’s watched by somewhat odd workers with ill-fitting hats that seem like they aren’t sitting on their heads but slightly above their heads and uniforms that cover anything that isn’t their face, which from this distance looks like a fairly dark grey.  Probably just the shadow the hat’s brim casts though, combined with the cloudy weather. You continue to drink your juice, and finish the bottle, Bro hasn’t come back though and it’s been at least 30 minutes now, so you retrieve another bottle of juice and start drinking that.

 

This process continues for another half hour, and now you need the bathroom.  Regardless of Bro’s vague threat, you aren’t so scared of him that you’ll stop yourself from getting on the boat to use their toilet, and your usual dislike of being on a sea vessel is too blocked out by your bladder right now for you to care, you just waltz on board and find the restroom yourself, then take your time relieving yourself, using your phone to occupy your time.  You’re on your phone far longer than it actually takes to use the toilet, however, and suddenly you feel the whole ship lurch. Holy shit, you were in here for hours, Bro probably left a while back thinking you just passed out in the back seat, and now you’re stuck on a ship leaving the docks. This isn’t good. You go to call anyone you can to let them know you’re still on the ship, but you suddenly have no service.  Are you already that far away from shore? Then the ship makes a motion that you  _ know _ a ship shouldn’t be making.  The whole thing lurches upwards, and rapidly picks up speed.  You wonder what the fuck kinda boat is this, but the not so steady acceleration of the ship puts too much stress on you for you to handle, and you pass out from the g-force.

 

You don’t know how long you were out for, only that it was way too long and you’re incredibly nauseous, lucky you, you were still in the bathroom of this hell-boat when you passed out, giving you a very convenient spot to empty the mostly apple juice filled contents of your stomach, how thoughtful.  You puke for a good minute before you can compose yourself. With that ordeal out of the way, you take note of the fact that the boat isn’t moving anymore, meaning it’s either stopped or you’ve gotten so used to the speed that it just feels like it isn’t moving. You briefly consider finding a crew member and asking them to take you back to galveston, but the workers you saw earlier didn’t look the friendliest, and frankly, as fast as you are, they didn’t look so slow, a head on encounter would likely tire you out to a point that you’d get caught anyways.  You decide to sneak around and get a good look at what’s going on outside. 

 

You barely even remember the route you took to get to the bathrooms, and you’ve resorted to trying random doors and hoping to find your way on deck, or at least to a window.  Maybe if you’d have taken an interest in boats as a kid you wouldn’t be having that much trouble navigating this ship’s layout, but now that you’re paying more attention to the halls, this doesn’t look like any ordinary boat, even with your piss poor knowledge of them.  You open up a door that looks like it might lead out, but instead you come face to face with a fairly disturbing sight. You see a tall man with horns and multicolored blank eyes grafted into various wire/tentacle combos as if he were being used as a human… no… not human, as an alien battery, you look left and right and notice this room is filled with them, all of them seemingly being used to power this ship.  “what the FUCK” you say aloud. Too loud, in fact, one of the workers from earlier is in here, sans hat and skin-covering uniform. He also has horns, and his dark grey skin  _ really was _ dark grey.  He hears you, and he starts to approach.  “Hey YOU1 ALIEN LOOKING KID1 WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING HERE?1  WE AIN’T TAKIN NO STOWAWAYS1” shit. Looks like you’ll have to run after all.  At least he’s the only active crew member you can see around here.

 

You flashstep out of the weird matrix-style hu-alien battery room and bolt.  You dart through the last door in the hall and find it’s the way to the deck, thank god.  You’re stunned by the view you get. A night sky lit by dozens of unrecognizable constellations and a pink and a green moon.  You’re Dave Strider, 17 year old coolkid, and you’ve just been taken to another planet. You stand in silence, taking in the breathtaking view of this alien world around you, shocked by everything that led up to this, until eventually you realize that the guy from before is still chasing you, and other crew members have finally noticed that you’re on deck.  You snap out of your wonder-filled trance and run for the way off the ship. You run past hundreds of guards on your way out of this apparent military compound. Your life may be in the most danger it's ever been in, including your whole life up to this point considering you lived with Bro.

  
You’ve run for what felt like hours now.  You’ve definitely passed through like 3 cities and a couple farms, and you can’t go any further.  Thankfully, whoever was chasing you gave up a lot sooner than you did, and you rest against a door of some odd looking hive-themed house.  You’re resting there for a bit when you hear muffled shouting coming from the other side of the door. Shit. Looks like you aren’t in the clear yet.  “( _YES YOU BANSHEE OF A CRUSTACEAN I HEARD THE THUD AT THE DOOR._ )”  You hear an incomprehensible screech that must constitute a reply.  “( _YES I SAW THE NEWS, NO I DON’T THINK IT’S THAT WEIRD ALIEN WHO OUTRAN AN ENTIRE ALTERNIAN MILITARY BASE.  WHAT FUCKING ASTRONOMICAL ODDS WOULD EVEN ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN. NO I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD TURN HIM IN, EVEN IF HE WERE OUT THERE THEY’D JUST CULL BOTH OF US_ )”  Ah. Fucking beautiful.  Whoever is in this house must be talking about you, unless some other human managed to strand themselves on this planet and wander aimlessly for hours on end hoping someone here is a decent enough person to not kill them on sight and best case scenario become friends with them.  Another screech. “( _ALRIGHT YOU SPONGE CLOT DEAFENING EXCUSE FOR A LUSUS, ALRIGHT.  I’LL CHECK THE FUCKING DOOR. DOES THAT SATISFY YOUR YOUR DAILY NEED TO ASSAULT MY  EARS WITH YOUR SHOUT SPHINCTER?_ )”  God damnit.  You get ready to run but the door opens before you can stand, and you fall backwards into the shouting alien’s house.


	2. Guest to a Crustacean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave stays at the hive of a nicer than average troll.

You’re unarmed.  For once you wish you listened to Bro when he told you to bring your sword on these meetings, but you didn’t because it wasn’t like you’d be abducted by aliens or anything, nah that’s impossible, sure is great that aliens aren’t a thing.  Amazing how this alien dude staring at you from above with rainbow sickles in his hands as you lie on your back just doesn’t exist. Funny how that works. Who’re you kidding, denial of this experience won’t get you anywhere, best case scenario this is a dream and you’ll wake up in that ship bathroom back at Galveston, worst case scenario you dodge with what little stamina you have left until he gets a good shot in and you die.  Guess there are worse ways to go. “alright man i’ll take you on but i won’t make this easy for you, come on let’s go” you tell him, getting to your feet and bouncing back and forth between them. He doesn’t move, in fact he just looks shocked. “dude are you gonna strike first or what, come at me.” He continues to stand still, then after staring at you for a solid minute, he tosses his weapons on a couch and lets out a laugh. “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE THE ONE WHO MANAGED TO OUTRUN THAT MILITARY BASE, FROM THE DISTANCE SHOTS I THOUGHT YOU WERE SOME DANGEROUS, HIGHLY TRAINED, SUPER FAST ALIEN SENT TO TAKE DOWN ALTERNIA, BUT NO, YOU’RE JUST SOME FUCKING SCRAWNY TEENAGER WHO HAD THE LUCK TO OUTPACE THOSE FUCKERS.”

 

You shouldn’t take it to heart, the guy clearly is just glad he wasn’t about to get murdered by some highly skilled assassin, but you’re hurt that he saw you as so low on the universal threat scale that probably exists somewhere that he could just throw his weapons away.  “scrawny teens can have surprises, how do you know throwing away your sickles wasn’t a mistake, i might just get behind you and use them on you myself. underestimating your opponent is a bad idea.” He just seems more amused at this idea than the previous one. “WHATEVER YOU SAY BULGEMUNCHER.  FEEL FREE TO COME INSIDE, IT’S NOT LIKE YOUR PRESENCE PUTS ME UNDER ANY MORE RISK OF CULLING.” It seems that you won’t be able to convince him you’re a threat, not that you want him to see you as a threat, given how he apparently has no intent to kill you and he doesn’t seem all that fond of those aliens you just ran from either.  You stand there, not having moved from your fighting stance, now experiencing the same frozen disbelief that he had just a few seconds ago. “IF YOU’RE NOT GONNA MOVE YOUR ASS I WILL SHUT THE DOOR, I’M NOT PAYING TO COOLING-VENTILATE THE OUTSIDE.” You snap out of your shock and your legs move forward automatically, you guess if you’re going to be stuck on a planet where the authorities want you dead you can at least make it a bit harder for them by staying inside.

 

“YOU’RE LUCKY YOU GOT HERE BEFORE MOON-SET, I DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT YOUR SPECIES BUT IF YOU’RE EVEN ANYTHING LIKE A TROLL THEN YOUR FLESH WILL BOIL, I FIGURE YOU PREFER TO NOT HAVE YOUR BODY ROAST LIKE A FUCKING CLUCKBEAST ON A SPIT.”  He’s joking, you think, there’s no way this place would have a sun so hot or so close that it would literally cook you in its light. You look out the window and note that the sun is rising, oh some sort of butterfly just went past… and now it’s on fire.  Maybe this guy wasn’t joking. “So, you got a name? figure that if i’m gonna spend any length of time here i should probably at least know what to call you.” “WHO SAID YOU WERE STAYING? I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER NOT DOING ANYTHING OF THE SORT.” You guess it’s reasonable for someone to not want you to stay at their home, especially since you’re wanted by the military, but at the same time you really need a place to stay.  You ask him, “well, CAN i stay? hate to remind you of this but i’m not exactly from around here and i don’t really have any guarantee that i’ll be able to find a place to stay at? i don’t wanna be a freeloader or anything but i really don’t think i have anywhere else to go.” He leaves the room for a bit, the only noise being a quiet movie on his television. He returns with some green stuff in a cup, and holds it out for you. D-does he want you to?  
  
You leave him holding the cup for a few seconds, and swallow, guess there’s no time like the present to try some weird alien drink.  You take it from his hands and put the glass to your mouth. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING YOU NOOK-WHIFFING DIPSHIT? YOU DON’T DRINK IT.”  He yells in an exasperated tone. Oh. How silly of you to think that he wanted you to drink the green liquid in a cup. He take the glass from you and grabs your hand, dipping your fingers into what you now realize is slime.  Cool, must be some alien greeting that you aren’t privy to given your 3 hour time on this planet. “I NEEDED TO SEE HOW YOUR SPECIES REACTS TO SOPOR, CAN’T LET YOU STAY IN A RECUPERACOON IF IT FUCKS WITH YOU TOO BAD.” Now that he mentions it, the slime is _really_ soothing, kinda makes you sleepy if you’re honest about it.  “what’s a recuperacoon? is that what beds are called here? is it some kinda sleeping cocoon?”  “IF BED IS THE ABSURD WORD FOR WHATEVER YOUR SPECIES SLEEPS IN, THEN YES.” “what does a bed have to do with slime?”  “I SUPPOSE I REALLY DO HAVE TO SHOW YOU EVERYTHING. FOLLOW ME BULGE-FOR PAN.” You get up off the couch and follow him to the room he leads you to.  “THIS IS WHAT A RECUPERACOON HAS TO DO WITH SLIME.” He’s gesturing to a purple lumpy container with green spots on it.

 

“you want me to sleep in that?”  You may have just gotten here but you’re smart enough to know when you’re being punked.  “WHERE ELSE WOULD YOU SLEEP? I DON’T EXPECT YOU TO PASS OUT ON THE LOUNGEBLOCK?” He’s being serious.  Great. Maybe you can talk him into letting you do just that. “hey man you’re already letting me stay the night you don’t gotta let me take your bed from you, i’ll be fine on the couch.”  “THERE’S MORE THAN ENOUGH ROOM IN THERE FOR TWO PEOPLE, YOU AREN’T TAKING ANYTHING FROM ME.” _Whoa there_ did is he saying you’re gonna sleep together? “hey listen dude i’m flattered and all but like i said i don’t even know your name and also i don’t really swing that way.”  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘DON’T SWING THAT WAY’? NOTHING I SAID EVEN INVOLVED SWINGING, AND REGARDLESS I’M NOT FLIRTING, THIS IS LITERALLY THE ONLY RECUPERACOON I HAVE, I’M NOT SOME RICH HIGHBLOOD YOU KNOW.”  “i mean i don’t like dudes, dude, and really i’ll be fine on the couch.” You really hope it doesn’t come to you having to sleep with another guy, that’s gross and bro would kill you if he found out, plus the idea of sleeping in slime sounds weird to you too, like how would you breathe?  What a way to go, you wind up on an alien death planet where a spacefaring army is trying to kill you and you drown in some slime. “FINE. I WON’T MAKE YOU SLEEP IN OPTIMAL CONDITIONS, I GUESS, IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND LATER ON I’M SURE YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND IT.”

 

The two of you head back downstairs to watch the rest of whatever it is he was watching when you got here, and he heads over to the oven and retrieves a pot pie.  He divides it three ways and hands you a plate. “THIS ISN’T FUCKING FLIRTING EITHER, JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING. I WAS JUST COOKING SUPPER FOR ME AND MY LUSUS BEFORE I WENT TO SLEEP, AND I JUST HAPPEN TO LIKE ROMANTIC COMEDIES.”  He sets another plate on a table and a giant white crab monster rushes over to it, devouring it and leaving the room, this must be his ‘lusus’, and whatever was screeching at him earlier. “IT’S KARKAT, BY THE WAY.” “this movie is named carcat?  is it about a car that falls in love with a cat, why would they make a movie about that?” “NO YOU FUCKING PAN NUMBING GRUB SMASHER MY NAME IS KARKAT, WITH TWO K’S. GOG IT’S LIKE YOU’RE JUST *TRYING* TO BE CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE RIGHT NOW. AND WHY THE MOTHERGRUBBING FUCK WOULD A MOVIE HAVE SUCH A SHORT NAME?  THAT TELLS YOU LITERALLY NOTHING ABOUT THE CHARACTERS AND THEIR MOTIVATIONS AND THE PLOT, THAT’S A FUCKING AWFUL MARKETING CHOICE IT HURTS MY PAN JUST THINKING ABOUT IT.” “oh. i’m dave, sorry for joking about your name dude, didn’t mean to.” Karkat seems to calm down a bit, saying. “THANKS. IF YOU WANNA KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS MOVIE IT’S CALLED ‘WHEREIN NUMEROUS VIGILANTES CONFRONT PERIL; ONE OF THEM BETRAYS THE OTHERS; (BUT IT TURNS OUT TO BE PART OF THE PLAN ALL ALONG); SEVERAL ATTRACTIVE FEMALE LEADS PROVOKE ROMANTIC TENSION; FOUR MAJOR CHARACTERS WEAR UNUSUAL HATS; ONE HOLDS PLOT-CRITICAL SECRET; 47 ON-SCREEN EXPLOSIONS, ONE RESULTING IN DEMISE OF KEY-ADVERSARY; 6 to 20 LINES THAT COULD BE CONSTRUED AS HUMOROUS -”  “wait... this is the title?” “IT GOES ON, THEY TEND TO BE LITERAL AND INFORMATIVE.” “huh.”

 

You and he eat your pot pie and watch the rest of the absurdly titled movie in silence, after which he takes all the plates to the kitchen and cleans them up.  He then goes to his room and leaves you on the couch. You lie there for an hour, staring at the cup of slime, and you eventually cave, you’re too stressed out to sleep here and an aid like that slime works better than any sleep aids you’ve seen on earth.  You get off the couch and ascend to where Karkat’s room is, then knock at the door. “hey man, i know i turned down your bed offer earlier, but i think i’ll take you up on it now.” “COME ON IN.” You open the door and make your way to the recuperacoon, where Karkat has stuck his head out of the slime and hung his arms over the side.  You get ready to climb in when Karkat stops you. “come on man what is it, i’m tired.” “YOU AREN’T GETTING IN HERE WITH YOUR CLOTHES ON.” “i KNEW you were flirting with me.” “I’M NOT FLIRTING, IT’S JUST COMMON FUCKING SENSE THAT YOU DON’T CLIMB INTO ONE OF THESE WITH CLOTHES ON UNLESS YOU WANT SLIMY CLOTHES.” Oh. That does kinda make sense, now that you think about it.  “alright.” You get out of your shirt, pants, socks and shoes and head back to the recuperacoon. “THE UNDERWEAR TOO.” “okay dude i KNOW you’re flirting now.” “LITERALLY NO NORMAL PERSON WEARS UNDERWEAR IN THEIR RECUPERACOONS DAVE. FUCKING TAKE THEM OFF AND CLIMB IN.” “fine dude, whatever i’ll take my damn underwear off.” You remove them and climb in. Karkat hands you a mask with a tube attached, guess that answers how you don’t drown in one of these.  He then takes another mask and puts in on his face and sinks into the slime, and you do the same, drifting off to sleep soon after.

 


	3. Showers and Crafts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave takes a shower and karkat works on a disguise

You wake up clinging to something warm, and open your eyes to see what it is.  You can’t see much besides a dark color in a heavy green tint, and you try to move around to get at least a somewhat better view.  You fight against your grogginess and slowly detach yourself from whatever you’ve been holding all night. Your hand manages to hit a wall, and you begin to slide it upwards until it reaches cold air and an edge.  The cold shocks you out of your drowsiness and you pull yourself up, taking off the mask after you break the surface. You look back into the slime and notice two things, instantly remembering the previous night. One, you’re nude, and two, you were clinging to another guy in your sleep  _ while _ nude.  Thoughts of how this looks fill your mind, and it bugs the shit out of you.  You desperately want to put this behind you, and you decide to take a shower.

 

The cold water hits your back and erases any thoughts of going back to sleep, and you try to focus as best as you can on not thinking about last night’s sleeping arrangements.  In this effort you replay yesterday’s events in your mind. You think about how Bro apparently sells porn puppets to aliens, and how this led to you climbing onboard a treasure planet-esque spaceboat, then you think about how you’re inattention to the passage of time led to you passing out cold on a bathroom floor, not one of your best moments.  Your mind crosses over how these aliens now know you’re here, and how they’re probably still searching for you right now. You think about this Karkat guy you met, and how despite seeing the news and an apparent risk of being killed for taking you in, he did it anyway. You think about how despite how you insisted on not being nude in a slime box with another guy, you were the one who clung to them like they were a teddy bear.  This train of thought isn’t helping. You’re very confident that that road is not one that needs to be explored in any way whether it be from your own internal monologue or from your psuedopsychologist sister who is now probably light years away that you have no way to contact. You spend the next few minutes trying to not think of anything, and just let the shower work its magic. You get lost in the sound of the water hitting you and the ground until you hear footsteps outside the door.  Karkat must be awake.

 

Dave Strider  => Be Karkat Vantas half an hour ago

 

Your dreams have always ranged from weird at best to nightmares that you’re some kind of preacher being tortured for daring to say maybe killing people is bad at worst.  Last day was an oddity. You dreamt that you were on a planet far from alternia, living your life carefree in a spacious and luxurious hive. You felt genuine happiness for the time that the dream went on.  You had a matesprit, one who made your bloodpusher soar any time you were near him. It was some unattainable heaven, and it felt great. Your only issue with the dream is that any time you tried to get a good look at your matesprit’s face, it was obscured.  No matter what you did you couldn’t get a good look at him. You wake up, feeling cold, like a heated padding had been held to you all day and then was suddenly removed. You get up out of your recuperacoon and get ready to start your night.

 

You slowly move to your ablution trap until you hear that it’s already running.  You don’t remember leaving it running when you went to sleep. A sinking feeling creeps into your acid tract, you run to get your sickles and then begin your approach to the ablution-block.  You fear some other troll has broken in and planned to take over your hive after culling you. With one last gulp, you throw open the door and get into a fighting stance. “YOU CAN TAKE MY FUCKING HIVE OVER MY HEAVILY MUTILATED CORPSE!”  You shout. Then you open your eyes, and suddenly wish you hadn’t. You are very promptly reminded that you took in a wanted alien the previous day, and you now want to die of embarrassment. You quickly exit the ablution-block and shout through the door, “YOU BETTER FUCKING FORGET THAT HAPPENED DAVE, I HAD A MOMENTARY LAPSE IN MEMORY AND I DON’T NEED YOU RIDING MY BULGE ABOUT HOW I SOMEHOW FLIRTED WITH YOU BY WAY OF BLINDING MY FUCKING LOOKSTUBS ACCIDENTALLY VIEWING YOUR GODDAMN WEIRD ALIEN GENITALS.”  He gives a muffled reply. “(i wasn’t gonna say anything, but since you decided to bring up riding things and genitals unprompted i’d wager flirting isn’t too far off the mark.)” “WHATEVER FUCKASS, JUST HURRY UP SO I CAN GET CLEANED OFF. CLEANING SOPOR OFF THE FUCKING FLOOR IS MISERABLE AND I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO CLEAN MORE THAN USUAL” Dave soon finishes his shower and leaves the block, heading back to your room, presumably to change into his clothes. You then get into the ablution trap and begin your own nightly routine.

 

You come downstairs some time later and pull out a couple bowls, pouring yourself and Dave some cereal, then pouring lusii-milk into that.  Dave seems out of it, or at least as out of it as you’ve seen him, since your frame of reference is exactly less than one day. “HEY FUCKER, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?  YOU SHOULD PROBABLY EAT YOUR GRUB-FLAKES BEFORE THEY GET SOGGY.” He appears startled at first before responding that he’s fine, quickly taking a bite from his own cereal afterwords.  He finishes his bowl before you’re even halfway finished with yours and he disappears, literally. His image blurred for a second and then he was gone. He walks back into the room a few moments later with a pencil and paper, and he sits down and begins to write.  He writes for a few minutes and then stops, and you wonder awhile why he’s stopped until you realize he’s staring at you. “need something?” he asks. “UHH, WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON?” “it's really nothing special dude, i’ve just been working on some lyrics.” “ARE YOU A SLAM POET?”  “i… i guess? technically? not really my dude i’m a rapper.” He hands you the sheet he’s been working on, and you were right, he’s a slam poet. His lyrics look alright for slam poetry but it’s never really been something you cared for. Maybe you could introduce this guy to Tavros later, see if they get along, but for the moment you just decide to stay within the limit of the risk you’re already taking by having him here without anyone’s knowledge.

 

“THEY LOOK ALRIGHT.”  He looks like he wants to take it as an insult, but either he’s just too out of it to care or he’s decided you just don’t get it, either one is fine with you.  “SO DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO DO? I DON’T THINK KEEPING YOU HERE ALL NIGHT EVERY NIGHT IS GONNA HELP YOU OUT LONG TERM, AND SINCE I DON’T THINK YOU HAVE AN EASY ‘FUCK OFF CULL PLANET’ ROUTE PLANNED YOU’RE GONNA BE LIVING HERE FOR THE TIME BEING.  WE CAN PROBABLY GET YOU LIKE, SOME FAKE HORNS, MAYBE EVEN A FUCKING PASSABLE DISGUISE TO KEEP THE HEAT OFF OF YOU IF WE TALK TO THE RIGHT TROLL.” You ask him.

He’s quiet for a moment, then he answers. “i think i’d like a way to contact my friends on earth.”  This catches you off guard for a moment, but it's honestly a pretty reasonable request, if you were sent away from everything you’d ever known, which you will be eventually, you’d wanna talk with people you knew to cope too.  “THAT’S… YEAH, I’LL SEE WHAT I CAN DO. I KNOW A GUY WHO MIGHT JUST BE ABLE TO SET SOMETHING LIKE THAT UP.” He just nods and goes back to writing down lyrics.

 

You leave your hive a bit later, hoping Dave doesn’t burn it down.  You figure the best you can do right now is get some craft supplies together and make some shitty makeshift horns for dave to wear while walking around in public, and also maybe get one of those big hoodies from a craft store, to hide Dave’s skin a bit better.  You make your way to Troll Michael’s, the only big craft shop left in business after all the Troll Hobby Lobbys got destroyed for smuggling tall pants and some painted cave walls. It’s not hard to find what you’re looking for. A headband from one aisle, some paints from another, foam for the actual horns, and some glue.  You also pick up a cheap tie-dyed hoodie, it’s gruesome, but it’s also probably Dave’s best bet for fitting in. You return to your hive to find Dave passed out on the loungeplank. He looks worn out. You decide to get to work on his horns. A few hours pass and you manage to cobble together something resembling horns, and you deem this to be good enough, leaving the gifts next to him for when he wakes up.

 


End file.
